The Unfortunate Truth
by Ori
Summary: Just as her death was becoming imminent; he was increasingly convinced that the world is better with her living in it. Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler
1. Chapter 1

**The Unfortunate Truth**

Part 1

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><p>"Are you expecting me to beg?" she asked, her voice shaky with fear when she saw him leave.<p>

"Yes," he admitted, and stopped walking just to savor her impending admission of defeat.

She didn't say anything for a moment. She had been a dominatrix for so long, she had almost forgotten how to submit - but her desperation and her will to live drove her on. Sherlock Holmes was, she knew as well as he, the only man who could save her life, now. "Please," she swallowed hard, forcing herself to continue, "You're right. I won't even last six months."

The honesty in her voice made him turn to her. This was the real Adler then, the Adler without her many masks, still beautiful but so much more vulnerable... He had thought hearing her beg would be a most satisfying conclusion to their game, poetic even, for she had once threatened to make him beg twice. How strange, then, that the expected triumph never quite materialized. He liked winning, he liked being right, but there were no satisfaction in knowing that Irene Adler was going to die because for once in her life she made the elementary mistake of falling in love.

If he was a man with a mind that would allow his heart to feel more, a man like John Watson, perhaps, he might have walked back to her side and comforted her - But he was not.

The best he could offer her was an apology. "Sorry about dinner," he told her before walking out the doors.

* * *

><p>Sherlock was composing music again, except instead of the sad melodic score he wrote back when he thought Adler was dead, now his music was loud and angry. John had tolerated with the noise – three full days – but enough was enough.<p>

"It's nearly eleven, don't you think it's time for something quieter?" As expected, Sherlock ignored him, so John tried again. "You may not need sleep, but I do." No response – but John was determined and decided to be more direct, "What happened that night with you and Adler, anyway?" By the time he returned to the apartment that night, Sherlock was already composing that horrid song. Adler was the obvious inspiration of the song. "If I don't know better..."

The music stopped abruptly. "I do not miss that woman, and before you ask, I am fine."

"I didn't say you -"

"As for your earlier question, the woman tricked me," Sherlock interrupted as he put down his violin, "But she made a mistake and I won the game."

Winning, John assumed, meant Sherlock had managed to unlock the phone. John wondered what sort of mistake a woman like Irene Adler could make. "What did you do with the phone"

"I gave it to Mycroft."

John considered the implications. The phone was, as Irene Adler had said, her life. Without it... Did Sherlock just knowingly sent the woman to her grave? "What will she do now without her protection?"

"I don't know," Sherlock said just before he retreated to his room and slammed his bedroom door shut, "But she won't last six months."

The most likely culprit for Sherlock's mood, as John analyzed later, was resentment for Irene Adler. The evidence was there: Sherlock would not refer to that woman by her name, and he had just striped her of the one thing that was keeping her alive. In the end, Sherlock was a proud man that coule not stand being outwitted and Irene Adler had done just that - It all seemed logical enough.

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><p>Irene Adler found out at a young age how different she was from the others, how her mind operated at a different level, and how easily she could manipulate the rest at will. When her parents died and left her with nothing, she began using people as tools to get what she wanted, at first because she had to, later because she could. But as with anyone else who could see and remember everything, she was cursed with boredom and loneliness. Money, power, and sex all had diminishing returns, after a while, everything always turned monotonous.<p>

Perhaps, that was why she began to do naughty things, having people fear her was more interesting than having them complacent. But when even that was not enough, she became involved with dangerous people, those that would seek vengeance, those that would want her dead. Being one step ahead of the big bad governments and criminal organizations of the world challenged her, kept her engaged and amused.

She knew very well she had no one but herself to blame for her current predicament.

Sherlock Holmes simply sped up the inevitable.

The risk was clear from the beginning. She knew Sherlock was just the sort of man that could best her if she was not careful. What she did not anticipate was just how easy it was to fall in love with him. Sherlock was right when he said sentiment was a weakness. She understood that, she had always been careful in not getting involved with messy feelings. But Sherlock was no normal man, and when she first noticed her own attachment she panicked and faked her own death. She would forget him, she told herself, but how? It was a horrible ending to a game: unresolved with no winners. It took her weeks, months, but one day she came to the realization that the prospect of finishing their game of cat and mouse was the sort of fun worth dying young for. Sherlock was worth dying young for.

When you play with fire there was always a chance of being burned – and oh, Sherlock was very, very hot indeed.

* * *

><p>He saw traces of her in the news: a car crash in Wales involving two empty taxis, a bombing at an empty dining hall in Germany, a drive-by shooting on the streets of Romania... the list went on, all of them connected by the single piece of jewellery left behind in each crime scene. She was leaving him a breadcrumb trail, a puzzle of sort, he realized, and he could not help but be impressed by the fact she was interesting enough to do this while running for her life.<p>

Even a triple murder at a house with windows and doors blocked from the inside could not keep _the_ woman from his mind. It made him uneasy, and if he was more honest with himself, scared. He had won their little game and walked away. He was supposed to forget her and move on to something new and exciting, but every time he thought he had, there she was again.

Two months after losing her protection, Adler was still on the run. She was far too good to be caught before then, but Sherlock knew from the increasing frequency of the incidents that her enemies were catching up with her.

The unfortunate truth, he slowly came to accept, was that just as her death was becoming imminent; he was increasingly convinced that the world is better with her living in it.

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><p>AN: I love how they portrayed Adler and Sherlock's relationship In Sherlock S2E1 – I practically screamed when I heard the ringtone after Adler closed her eyes, resigned to die. I did not expect to see Sherlock travelling all the way to Karachi to save her – but he did and I am now totally sold on the pairing.

This story has 2 parts. I am hoping to post part two during the weekend. This is probably the fastest I have ever written anything.

And finally, please review! I love to hear from fellow Sherlock/Adler fans**. **


	2. Chapter 2

**The Unfortunate Truth**

Part 2

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><p>Sherlock remembered standing in front of a hall of crying people next to a dried-eyed Mycroft. Behind them lay their parents in their respective coffins. They had died a week prior when a truck crashed into them while they were at the side of a highway trying to restart their stalled car. He had been greeting the guests the whole day with his brother, he was bored, but even someone as emotionally inept as him knew that it would be unacceptable to simply leave.<p>

Another guest, another condolence and regard, he wondered why people bothered giving them at all. It was not like any of that would bring his parents back.

"Our parents already made preparations. Tomorrow, I will have control of their accounts. We have nothing to worry about," his brother said in cold practicality later.

He nodded and wondered what was wrong with them: why were they not crying; why were they not sadder? His parents had been good to him, even if they never really understood him. He would much rather them alive, but it was as Mycroft suggested, in the large scheme of things their death changed nothing. He would still finish university, his brother would still have that unspecified important position in the government, and they would both continue living on. "They care so much more than us," he lamented.

Mycroft turned his head and gave him a long look. "All things die, all hearts are broken," he observed eventually, "caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."

_It wasn't, it isn't, it never will be._

Caring was not an advantage, Sherlock knew, breathed the truth of it all, but it had become apparent to him that caring about the woman (her whereabouts, her life) may just be a fair tradeoff for a bit of excitement – and Sherlock could never really resists rare breaks from the perpetual monotony.

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><p>Her old friend, the Italian Mafia sent his salutation today. Having noticed she was being followed soon after she stepped out of her hotel in Naple, she led them to a market where she bought a bottle of chili oil, a bistro where she had a steak and stole a fork and a steak knife, then finally a quiet park where she confronted them. Chili oil in their eyes, cutlery jabbed deep into their legs, she stole their guns and shot them. She placed an earring near them before leaving for even the most inept detective to find. It was the sixteenth piece she had left – sixteen different crime scenes, sixteen places she was attacked, most of them reported in the local news – he must have noticed by now.<p>

At first, it was her call for help, a last attempt at self-preservation without further injury to her pride or triggering the surveillance her enemies have placed on traditional communication channels. For weeks, she watched carefully for any signs of Sherlock around her, ever hopeful. But two and a half months into her run, she was resigned to the fact that help would never come. That whatever she thought Sherlock was and might have felt for her must have all been naïve wishful thinking conjured by her desperate and wounded heart.

She continued her futile routine nevertheless.

She thought she was doing all this because she wanted him to know exactly what he had done to her (a little vengefully, because she knew Sherlock was not completely amoral however hard he tried to convince the world otherwise), but a deep introspective look within later she realized that was only an excuse. The unfortunate truth dawned on her as it always did: above all, she wanted him to remember her fondly. She wanted him to remember her not as the pitiful woman that begged for her life, but as the one woman in the world that would turn even her own death march into a game.

She hoped he realized that it was all for him, and she hoped he found it at least a little interesting. It would be a compliment. It would be enough.

* * *

><p>The cases in the past month had been rather mundane, all of them brain teasers at best, and Sherlock solved each of them within the hour. The only thing keeping him from dying of boredom had been his fixation on the woman. His constant search of the news outlets for her whereabouts aside, the highlight of the weeks had been stealing Irene Adler's file from under his brother's nose. The file wasn't any more detailed or interesting than the information he had managed to gather himself, but the week of scheming was entertaining, and he could not help but feel a certain sense of satisfaction when his elaborate ploy panned out exactly as he had envisioned.<p>

Finding yet another trace of the woman, this time in the Corriere della Sera, Sherlock took a slow breath and let his mind run.

* * *

><p>When the adrenaline passed, Irene Adler recognized that her run was about to come to an end. She had fractured her right shin and ankle during the fight and she could not walk without hobbling. Running was completely out of the question. The next night she bought a plane ticket to Pakistan – it was one of the few countries she had not done business in. If she was to die, she didn't want any of her vengeful acquaintances to take credit for her death, she wanted to die on her own terms. She knew exactly how to put herself in danger once in Pakistan; she had planned this since the beginning.<p>

Waiting for her final flight, Irene visited John Watson's blog one last time and let herself indulge.

* * *

><p>The last sign of the woman was an article on an apparent burglary at an inn in Klev, Ukraine. No one was hurt except for the accused burglars. Witness account stated that a woman had apprehended the three men in the lobby before leaving the crime scene with a clear limp just before the policy arrived. A ring was found near the unconscious thieves.<p>

It had been nearly five days. Prior to this, she had been appearing on the news every other day. That, together with the limp, convinced him she was most likely in trouble.

The obvious question, of course, was where did she go after that?

A vital clue came when he absent-mindedly began plotting the cities she had visited on a map. Half way through the exercise, a pattern began to emerge. He had thought she was travelling to all the cities out of necessity, but it was more than that. Irene Adler wasn't just playing hide and seek with her enemies, she was visiting specific cities so that when plotted on a map it would form an arrow pointing straight to the Middle East.

He laughed out loud. Oh, _that_ woman was good.

With new found vigor, Sherlock quickly pulled out the file he had built on her. He reviewed her past activities in the Middle East, and he soon realized where she must be at. She had made enemies in every Middle East country except for one, so Pakistan. The woman had always been attracted to large cities, so Karachi. It was so obvious.

He had his plane ticket printed and his bag half packed before he realized what he was doing – He was flying to Pakistan with the intent to save her. He wondered if he would find her in time (difficult to say, Karachi has a population of over 13 million). He wondered if he was out of his mind (probable, he had experimented with many substances). He wondered what sort of comments Mycroft and John would make if they ever found out (not that he would let them). It didn't matter, he decided in the end: he was a psychopath and trying to keep her alive was self-serving enough.

Logic be damned – he thought as he yelled his goodbye to Mrs. Hudson – at least he was having fun.

* * *

><p>She knew it was the end when they led her to a dimly lit room with a camera and a man holding a Persian sword. She was ready for death, but there could never be quite enough preparation for a beheading and she felt her leg tremble as she progressed deeper into the room. They forced her to kneel in front of the camera and asked her in English if she had any last words. She replied in Urdu that she would like to send a text message. They let her.<p>

The only thing she could give the one man that mattered was closure, so she replied to the lone message he had sent her. _Goodbye, Mr. Holmes. _

If she had one regret, (though she was not sorry for anything she had done) it would be that she hardly got to know the man that amused her longest.

She closed her eyes and waited for death.

* * *

><p>In the silence, there was a moan.<p>

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><p><strong>Fin<strong>

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><p>Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own any of these wonderful characters.<p>

A/N: And there you have it, my take on what happened, hope you guys enjoy reading this. The moment I saw the ending, all I could think about was how in the world did Sherlock find Irene and why was Irene in Karachi in the first place. I hope the scenario I created was at least somewhat plausible.

I wish there are other story genre filters than what they have. I wouldn't really call what I wrote romance but it was more than just friendship. I suppose, maybe, this is really as romantic as Sherlock could get?


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